Back in 2020, the pandemic for me began with the cancellation of a family reunion. I’m happy to report we finally got around to making up for that.
COVID is still circulating. At my workplace it was running kind of rampant (as much as it can these days) in recent weeks, so obviously it’s not going away anytime soon.
The good news is that life is pretty much back to normal, where it was before all that began.
My brother, the oldest one, who was the first to bow out of the 2020 reunion when it was still voluntary to decide about lockdown measures, is retiring from the Air Force. This ended up being the occasion, at the ceremony yesterday, to getting the gang back together for the first time in nine years (at Mom’s funeral).
It was pretty awesome. I’m not going to describe everything here, but it also meant I got to catch up with my Maine nephews for the first time since 2017, in which they’ve both been literally and figuratively growing leaps and bounds.
Of course I got to see the Burito (as I did last year) (twice) (and again in June!), and her expanding network of sisters and brother, and that was great!
I learned a little of the new Billy Joel song and almost pulled it off at the ceremony (my brother’s a big fan, but I seem to be a little more involved in some of Billy Joel’s career in recent years than he’s been, but then he’s been very, very busy in his career(s)).
Played some card games! Card games are one of the religions we ascribe to.
And other games. Even a little of the Olympic Games!
And some good tours of a little local nature (including the obligatory trip to Bailey Island) (and several helpings of Moxie).
May have made the most significant breakthroughs in thirty years of prep work on Collider! So that was pretty cool.
And yes, officially closing the thoughts on the pandemic here, about a year after I last discussed it.
